1. Field of the Disclosure
The invention is directed to a method for asynchronous communication through an internet platform and to an internet platform.
2. Description of the Related Art
Internet platforms, for example MySpace, Facebook, Studi-VZ or Schüler-VZ, which can also be called social networks, are very popular, especially with young users. On these internet platforms, the users can create pages with user profiles, which contain information, for example, about friends, interests, hobbies, etc., of the user, in the form of text, photos, videos or similar. Moreover, the users who are registered in one of these platforms can communicate through the platform both synchronously and asynchronously with one another, whereby in the first case the communication usually takes place either as instant messaging between two on-line users by exchange of text messages (chat), speech (audio chat) or images (video chat), and in the latter case (that is, asynchronously), usually by email (email) between an on-line and an off-line user.
However, the known internet platforms do not fulfill all requirements that are desired by the user of the platform.
First of all, the above-mentioned possibility of asynchronous communication by email with other users of the internet platform represents only a part of all the known communication possibilities that furthermore includes the sending of messages or mail in the form of letters, faxes or text messaging or the transmission of spoken messages.
Further, internet platforms aim to collect as many registered users on their platform as possible and therefore do not allow asynchronous communication with nonusers through the internet platform, that is, with natural persons, companies, organizations, associations or other institutions that are not registered on the internet platform.
However, this means that the users of the internet platform who would like to use a communication means other than email or who would like to communicate asynchronously with a nonuser by sending or receiving mail, must leave the platform and must carry out the communication using a communication pathway that is different and separate from the platform.
Moreover, in the case of the known internet platforms, it is regarded as a disadvantage that users may register on the platform with a false identity for the purpose of misuse, for example, in order to obtain information about other users. The same also applies to email addresses, behind which fundamentally a completely different person can hide than the person named in the address.